The Rot of Decelerationist Thinking

Inside TED’s passive-aggressive interrogation of Sam Altman and the future

Last week (April 11), Sam Altman—CEO of OpenAI—sat down for what should have been a landmark TED interview: a state-of-the-moment conversation about intelligence, responsibility, and the tools reshaping civilization. Instead, it became a showcase for a deeper sickness in our institutional discourse. TED, once the playground of bold thinkers and builders, now performs a different function. It soothes elites with intellectualized fear, rebranded as moral concern. It asks not how we build, but whether we should build at all.